For over 15 years in my career, I had never been tasked. Not even as a young engineer, straight out of school. Not even when I changed roles, nor during my first weeks at a new company. I have always had autonomy within an understanding of my role on the project and within the organization. […]

In my post on balancing discovery and delivery, using dual-track scrum was one way to find a balance between “innovation-focussed” people with “get things done” people and to ensure you were not only focussed on delivery. Still, I wondered if there was a better way to integrate the process so the two sides work together […]

It’s that time of year again – the annual performance review. While there have been plenty of arguments on eliminating or radically changing the ritual, performance evaluations are still a reality for most of us. So, may as well make it as constructive and useful as we possibly can. Today’s post is focused on how […]

A real conversation I had two weeks ago: Executive: “What project management method do you use?  Please don’t tell me it’s Scrum.” Me: “Actually, we are Agile and use Scrum.” Executive: “Oh, no! I have seen so many Scrum projects go bad!” Other Executive: “Well, this is more of a hybrid project…” Me: “We could […]

When you start to plan a project where do you start?  Do you open MS Project and start entering tasks?  Do you start building a backlog and apply your favorite Agile planning techniques?  As I mentioned in my Best Scrum-ban-plan Board post, I have been using that board a lot for high level project planning […]